3 Ridgefield teachers earn innovation grants worth $5,000 each

Ridgefield — Ridgefield Public Schools Foundation and Columbia Credit Union announced that three teachers earned Paul Lewis Innovation Grants, with each teacher receiving $5,000. The grant board received 12 applications for teachers seeking money to help bring new, creative, original or out-of-the-box programs to their classrooms and decided to award grant money to Alan Adams, an art teacher at Sunset Ridge Elementary School; Shannon Hemrick, Kent Lind and Katy Sheley, science teachers at Ridgefield High School; and Jeff Brink with the district’s robotics program. Adams will use the money to purchase iPads and digital art programs for use with curriculum, such as animation, filmmaking, coding-based art and digital painting and comics. The science teachers will purchase 13 data-collection devices, which will allow students to participate in more than 100 hands-on science experiments in the classroom and field. The robotics program will use the money to provide year-round opportunities for students to engage in robotics and fund a weeklong robotics camp for third- through sixth-graders hosted by high school students.